n 1999, as the Minister Of Health in Qatar, I participated in the Gulf Cooperation council (GCC) Ministers Of Health meeting in Muscat, Oman. As a cardiologist, I raised the red flag about the status of cardiovascular disease in our region. In that meeting, a resolution was adapted to form a “Heart Disease Committee” with me as a chairman. Our task was to put a plan to combat the alarming level of heart disease in the GCC states. Each minister appointed two cardiologists for the committee from his country. The committee held its first meeting in Doha in Feb. 2000 and adopted three very important historical plans:
1. Converting the planned Hamad Hospital Heart Disease Conference in Doha to be the first GCC Cardiovascular Conference to be held in 15-17 January 2002 under the supervision of the committee.
2. Working for the establishment of GCC professional society (Gulf Heart Association) with the members of the heart disease committee as the nucleus.
3. Creation of a unified GCC heart disease registry.
Our first GCC cardiovascular conference was very successful with cardiologists attending from all the Gulf states, for the first time, and from other Arab and foreign countries. During that conference in January 2002, we announced the formation of GHA as an independent non-governmental professional society with headquarters in Doha, Qatar.
By January 2002, the first two of our goals were achieved. Nine months later, in October 2002 in Doha, during the first business meeting of the GHA, the idea of a unified GCC registry for CVD was on our agenda. A committee was formed for that purpose. The committee had its first meeting in Mach 2004 in Ajman, UAE but the scope of the study was not precisely defined then. Because some members of that committee were very busy with there clinical and administrative work, not much progress was achieved over two years. In September 22, 2005, during the GHA meeting in Dubai, UAE, we reformed the committee with more enthusiastic members. The new committee held its first meeting in Doha, Qatar on December 29, 2005 when the committee finalized its protocol for the study and limited the scope of the study to acute coronary syndrome (ACS) under the acronym GULF RACE (Gulf Registry of Acute Coronary Events). The protocol was approved by the GHA executive committee in April 8, 2006 in Manama, Bahrain. The first two phases of the study was carried out in 6 countries: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, UAE and Yemen.
Our colleagues in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) started their registry earlier than the GHA and continued in a separate manner until the end of 2007. The KSA joined the other six GCC states for the third phase. The final protocol for the third phase is expected to be approved in the beginning of July 2008 by the GHA executive committee.
The first phase of our study was a pilot phase for one month, which started on May 8, 2006. The second phase was 5 months study started on January 15, 2007. The final results – the overall combined and for each GCC state – were presented in detail in Sanaa, Yemen in April 10, 2008 during the GHA meeting.
In comparing our baseline characteristics to similar and well-known published data (GRACE)1,2, our Gulf data show a higher percentage of males, smokers, and diabetics but there is no significant differences in outcome in terms of mortality. Because of the large young expatiate labor force in the Gulf, our patients are younger than the patients in GRACE.
As could be seen in the following summaries of the presentation in Yemen, there is no great differences in the results between the GCC states. The sex differences in our Gulf citizens with ACS requires further study and analysis. The use of medication and in-hospital outcomes for ACS in the Gulf is in line with the published international results of similar studies. We have a higher percentage of diabetics in our population than the rest of the world.¨

References:
1. Steg et al, American Journal Cardiology 2002;90:359-363.
2. Eagle et al European Heart Journal 2008:29:609-617.